Alexander Hawkins in the greenHere's an experience that's not to be missed: a 6-hour video capturing the live stream of the performance of Anthony Braxton's Sonic Genome project at Jazzfest Berlin 2019 on October 31. I have listened to the whole thing once, and dipped in on some of the visuals... it's pretty damn amazing. The space it took place in, the Gropius Bau Museum, is a gorgeous space, lots of rotundas, open staircases, balconies, and some kind of plant structure in the middle of one of the halls. It must have been exhilarating to walk around and get immersed in Braxton's music. Here were some of the highlights for me:
0:00:00 - 0:15:00: Braxton's opening, conducting what looks like the whole ensemble.
2:35:22 - 2:36:02: Close-up of Ingrid Laubrock soloing on soprano sax.
3:45:00-ish - The singers and the great orchestral riff that follows the singing, eventually joined by a sax trio including Braxton and James Fei.
3:58:00 - The whole orchestra breaks into this vocalizing/chanting section that's truly mesmerizing, and it looks like they're having a blast doing it!
4:29:30: A sweet quartet: flute/trombone/bassoon/tenor sax, in front of the plant structure... then joined by Alexander Hawkins at 4:30:35 playing melodica and piano from up within the structure! Great piano at 4:32:22. Augmented by Cymin Samawatie on vocals. (It thrills me to no end that Hawkins will be joining Braxton for a standards quartet tour in January. Oh, to be in Poland or London then...)
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